Topic: Amanda Knox

Shooting on Seattle’s Beacon Hill: Someone was shot shortly before 4 a.m. today in the 2900 block of 12th Avenue South in Seattle, according to Seattle police. This story will be updating Amanda Knox’s ex-boyfriend says she provided alibis for both of them him that he hopes will persuade Italy’s top criminal…

By FRANCES D’EMILIO Associated Press ROME — Amanda Knox’s former Italian boyfriend said Tuesday the American student provided alibis for him that he will use to try to persuade Italy’s court of last resort to dismiss his conviction for the murder of her British roommate. Raffaele Sollecito hopes the Court of Cassation will rule he deserves…

The Associated Press Amanda Knox’s lawyers have formally asked Italy’s court of last resort to review the U.S. student’s appeals court conviction for the 2007 stabbing murder of her British roommate. Defense lawyer Luciano Ghirga told The Associated Press on Wednesday that the paperwork was submitted last week to the Court of Cassation, Italy’s highest criminal court. Knox’s…

Convicted again: After being convicted a second time for murder in Italy, Amanda Knox says she’s “frightened and saddened,” and that she “expected better” from the Italian justice system. Could she be extradited? Several steps would have to happen, including a formal request from Italy. Free will cost you: That Amazon…

Before Amanda Knox could be arrested and extradited, she would get her day in court – only this time, in the United States. The extradition process would kick off only if Italy makes a formal request to the U.S. State Department. State would then route the request to the Department of Justice’s Office of International Affairs…

Jury deliberations in the Amanda Knox/Meredith Kercher murder case begin: A verdict in the retrial of Seattle’s Amanda Knox in the slaying of her former roommate in Perugia, Italy, is in the hands of the jury this morning. No surprise this is a popular story this morning: Utility bill discounts available And some…

Raffaele Sollecito, right, talks with his father Francesco Thursday in the Florence court where the younger Sollecito and Seattle’s Amanda Knox are being retried in the stabbing death of Knox’s former roommate, Meredith Kercher in Pergugia, Italy, in 2007, (AP Photo/Riccardo Sanesi, Lapresse)

FLORENCE, Italy —The defense lawyer for the former boyfriend of Seattle’s Amanda Knox told an appeals court Thursday that the young lovers were blamed by authorities for the murder of a British student to calm fears that a monster was loose in their Italian university town.

Defender Giulia Bongiorno said her client, Raffaele Sollecito, and Knox were identified as suspects by police in a “record” four days after the murder of Meredith Kercher in the central town of Perugia because authorities “did not want to think that a stranger, a monster, could have entered a house and murdered a student.”

Bongiorno said much of the evidence later used to convict the pair in their first trial — including the presumed murder weapon found in Sollecito’s kitchen drawer and a clasp that had been ripped from Kercher’s bra — had not even been gathered by investigators at that point.

Bongiorno, on the last day of closing arguments in the pair’s third trial, showed a court slides and videos in a bid to dismantle the prosecution’s case. Sollecito sat at her side.

Kercher, 21, was found murdered in her bedroom in the apartment she shared with Knox and two others on Nov. 2, 2007, having been sexually assaulted and stabbed.

Meredith Kercher, Amanda Knox

In their first trial, Knox and Sollecito were sentenced to 26 years and 25 years, respectively, in proceedings that made headlines around the world.

Italy’s high court ordered the case back to trial after vacating their 2011 acquittals, blasting the appeals court’s handling of the case. While Sollecito, now 29, has attended several hearings, Knox, 26, remains in Seattle, where she returned a free woman after her acquittal.

A third man, Ivory Coast-born Rudy Hermann Guede, is serving a 16-year term in the case after being convicted in a separate trial.

Knox, in an interview published Thursday in the La Repubblica newspaper, said she didn’t return to face trial because she feared being jailed again.

“It was a difficult choice, because I would have wanted to come to Italy to speak directly to the judges,” Knox was quoted as saying.

She added that she hopes she can meet Kercher’s parents “after my innocence has been definitively confirmed.”

Some retirement package: Valley Medical Center CEO Rich Roodman’s contract runs out at the end of the month — the contract that makes him the state’s highest-paid public hospital chief. But even if the hospital’s board doesn’t keep him on, he’ll walk away with a lot of money. Two teen girls are…

Surprise! Thousands of state residents who enroll in Washington’s expanded “free” Medicaid program may not know that after they’re dead, their estates can be billed for ordinary health-care expenses. UPDATE: 8:45 a.m. | Amanda Knox’s earlier appeals court decision is “fiction?”: The attorney representing the family of slain British student Meredith Kercher…

The Associated Press Amanda Knox says her lawyers filed an appeal of her Italy slander conviction Monday with the European Court of Human Rights, an international court in France. The slander conviction was based on statements the student from Seattle made to police in November 2007 when she was being questioned about the slaying of her British…

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The Today File is a general news blog featuring real-time coverage of Seattle and the Northwest. It is reported by the news staff of The Seattle Times and includes stories from The Associated Press and McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.